What I learned from NLS data

My colleague, Jody Heymann, and I learned about the importance of parental availability -- not just mother's availability but father's as well - to school-age children's access to educationally-supportive resources and to children's education outcomes. We learned that having a health condition has a significant impact on the ability of low-income mothers' ability to maintain a job after leaving welfare.

Why I chose NLS data

The longitudinal nature of the NLS is essential to being able to assess causal effects, and was essential for my dissertation and then articles examining the effect of family events on employment using the work history file. Having detailed work conditions - again over time - was not available any where else, nor was there a data set with incredibly detailed child outcomes that also had parental employment characteristics. My research would not have been possible without the NLSY79.

Ohio State University Center for Human Resource Research

Resources

This site was created at the Center for Human Resource Research (CHRR) at The Ohio State University to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS). The NLS is a program of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CHRR has conducted the NLS since the program began in 1965, in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau (from 1965 to 2003) and NORC at the University of Chicago (from 1978 to the present).